


Berlin

by ZaliaChimera



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: 1930s, Anthropomorphic, Dark, Germany, M/M, Nazis, Politics, Sexual Content, Weimar Germany, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-24
Updated: 2011-11-24
Packaged: 2017-10-26 12:30:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/283141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZaliaChimera/pseuds/ZaliaChimera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Berlin, a city divided between Babylon and Rome, and the slow descent towards darkness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Berlin

**Author's Note:**

> Title: Berlin  
> Fandom: Hetalia  
> Author: Zalia Chimera  
> Rating: R  
> Pairing: Germany/Prussia  
> Notes: Written for the 2011 bout of aph_historyswap on Livejournal  
> Warnings: Sex, the slow slide into fascism
> 
> Summary: Berlin, a city divided between Babylon and Rome, and the slow descent towards darkness.

Prussia’s makeup is smeared across his face in black rivulets, smudges of bruised shadow and colour around his eyes. Lipstick is spread in obscene red from lips to sharp cheekbone; some bright young thing, no doubt, a boy from Bavaria sucked into the darkness of this most fractured of cities.

Germany’s thumb rubs hard against the corner of Prussia’s eye, mimicking the bruise of Kohl. Prussia groans, cock pressing up hard against Germany’s belly as Germany rocks into him, his painted mouth falling open in a pant, red eyes squeezing tight closed. His vicious fingers claw down Germany’s broad back leaving bright-hot lines where his nails dig in.

He thrusts lazily, sticky summer heat seeping into his bones as he drags Prussia out taut like a bowstring and he can see Berlin mapped out across his brother’s sweat-slicked body. He looks like a whore like this, made up and moaning, tongue over scarlet lips with the colour rubbing off onto Germany’s fingertips. He’s contagious, that’s what he is, when he slinks home, black and blue and red and Germany knows what he wants, what he makes Germany want.

“Gott,” Prussia hisses, legs tightening around Germany’s hips, shoving back up against him with strength that belies his appearance. He grabs Germany’s ass, squeezing hard and pulling him closer, closer like they’ll fuse together if they can just cross that last gap of flesh and ideas that lies between them. His nails dig in hard, clawing to drag Germany to his pace, his rhythm, but Germany remains implacable, steady and focussed even as he kisses Prussia hard, biting down on his lower lip to taste blood and lipstick, a heady cocktail.

He fists Prussia's cock, strokes, that little half twist to his wrist that makes his brother writhe until he comes, sticky white against his chest and Germany's hand. He lays back, spent, selfish and satisfied as Germany fucks him, spread-eagled like some decadent idol and Germany is powerless to resist as he comes, dragged over the edge of his orgasm. It leaves him panting harshly, fingers clenched tight against bony hips, Prussia's breathless laugh ringing loud in his ears.

“You're so silent, West,” he says, voice husky and worn with his moans. “I'd think you didn't enjoy it but I can feel the proof right here.” He clenches around him, and Germany's eyes close tight against the sensations that elicits in his softening cock.

He pulls out, turning away from the flicker of discomfort that he sees on his brother's face as he pulls away, never meeting Prussia's eyes. “Oi, West?”

“Mmm?” Germany replies as he pads towards the bathroom, cleaning himself off quickly, wiping away the evidence of their rough coupling. He tosses Prussia a damp wash-cloth, snorting softly at the indignant snort that drags from those painted lips.

“Come to the club with me tonight,” Prussia says with honey and lotus in his voice.

Germany frowns, lips drawn into a harsh line. “Again?” he asks quietly, hovering in the doorway. Prussia is a dark shape on the bed, the first rays of white sunlight slipping between the cracks of the curtains onto white hair and a black smile. “You were there last night.”

And a hundred other nights, stumbling in drunk and flushed, or crawling in bloody and snarling, but always wanting and he wonders if he should blame himself for giving in to Prussia's desires every time.

Indolent, Prussia smiles, stretching, muscles flexing strong beneath pale skin. “Another night won't hurt then,” he says and Germany grimaces at his ridiculous logic and wonders if this is the same man who marched into Paris, who united Germany beneath a single banner, the man who brought his existence about?

“Someone has to work,” he says coolly, fixing Prussia with an intent look. “There's more to Germany than just Berlin.”

“None that are the centre of the world,” Prussia replied, voice tinged with pride for a city which sells itself so cheaply when they have built so much else.

He stares for a moment, two, then looks away, heading for the door and the sterile safety of his own bedroom. “I have work to do.”

The closes behind him and in the streets below, Berlin wakes.

\----------

He passes a rally in the park as he walks to work, men in brown shirts wearing deformed crosses. They talk of pride, of strength, of _Nation_ and Germany cannot help but listen. They love him, he realises, love him more than anything. It is a very strange feeling after so many years of recession and humiliation, the shunned leper of Europe, while France gloats and England grows complacent.

He walks closer, step by step, a thread pulling him inexorably towards them. Revolution, unity, reformation; they make a flame burn in his heart that he had believed long since extinguished. Part of him wants to call out _'I am here, my people! My beloved people. I am your country and I have not forsaken you'_ and he closes his eyes and lets the words of their anthem wash over him, warm and lovely.

They sing, and he sings with his people.

\----------

“You're late,” Prussia says, gilded smirk on his lips as he catches Germany's wrist. His lips are gold today, his cheeks brushed with powder, and he wears no jacket over his shirt and waistcoat. The first buttons of his shirt are undone to reveal a sliver of pale chest, and Germany wonders sourly whether he has already been with someone tonight, a boy in a back alley, or a waifish girl in her gaudy boudoir. The thought prompts him to pull away and he looks down at his wrist as though expecting Prussia's grip to leave an indelible mark on his skin.

“There's no such thing as late here,” he says, and the cigarette and stale-beer and absinthe scent of the place drifts out to grip them, promise and warning all in one.

“Right there, West.” Prussia laughs like gunfire and grabs him again, tugging him firmly into the smoky interior, the crowds of people; dressed and half dressed and some not at all and drinking and smoking and things that Germany does not care to put a name to. “You said you weren't coming.”

“I said that I had work,” Germany says archly. “You always assume.”

“You make it easy to assume,” Prussia replied, quick tongue and devilish eyes, his lips upturned as he draws Germany down and down. His arm slides around Germany's waist, a familiar weight. Germany stiffens but Prussia's grip does not falter. It never has, not for as long as they have been brothers.

Not ever, he would claim.

“No-one cares,” Prussia says, lips resting against his ear for the briefest of moments. It's still enough to make him shudder, desire and apprehension mingling into the most intoxicating cocktail. “This is Berlin.”

“This is Germany,” he replies, and he hates the waver in his voice and loves the nip of teeth against his earlobe, the tug that is enough to make him wince. He bleeds just like anyone else.

Prussia shrugs, grin widening, welcoming him in as the girl on the stage begins to sing. He can see the pale skin of her thigh, stark beneath the stage lights, sweaty, like he can taste it on his lips. “Same thing, brother.”

“No,” he whispers, because it isn't the same, and part of him wants to scream them from the stage, to shake that girl until her slender neck snaps. He turns instead, inhaling against his brother's neck, musk and steel and gunpowder, even in peacetime. “It isn't the same at all.”

They slide into seats near the stage, the beat of the music, brass and bass, heavy beneath Germany's skin and he can hear every click of the heels of the dancer's shoes. The stage lights are hot, even here, and Prussia slides close and leans forward, arms resting against the stage as he watches with undisguised lust, lips curved back into a hungry smile.

“I passed a rally in the park today,” Germany murmurs as a drink is brought to him. The rum slips down his throat, thick and dark and sweet, lingering on his lips.

Prussia gives him a sideways look, one eyebrow raised curiously. “Oh?” He looks amused more than anything and it makes something dark shift in Germany's chest.

“They were speaking of revolution,” he says more strongly, drawing himself up from the slouch he had fallen into when he had entered, spine straight and proud.

Prussia's expression twists into a derisive smirk and he turns back to the stage. “That is nothing new.”

It feels almost like a physical blow, the casual dismissal, when Germany remembers the sound of united voices pounding in his blood, and he lowers his gaze like the child he had once been, the child that he sometimes still feels like when stood alongside Prussia. “They want change, real change,” Germany replied, displeasure curling in his voice, and he watches disapproving as Prussia's gaze lingers on every revealed curve and swell.

“They always say they want that,” Prussia says. “The decade turns, people want another revolution.” It was derisive and amused in a way that made Germany's skin crawl. They are _his_ people, _his_ lands, not Prussia's, not any more. The resentment is bile in his throat.

“What they want should be listened to,” he says, the singing rising in his blood once more, clear and bright.

And Prussia laughs.

He is decadent, and slovenly, so far from the discipline that Germany had come to know, and he laughs.

“They do not know what they want!” Prussia says, voice clear as a bell, cutting through the music and noise of the room. “They see one thing, and wish for it, and then a decade later, all change, jump on the next ship and let it sail! War, peace and revolution.”

“You dismiss them so easily,” Germany says, lips curling in a sneer.

“You care too much,” Prussia replies sharply, all spikes and heat.

“Someone has to,” Germany bites back, baring his teeth like some savage dog, displaying the feral mutt beneath the proud German exterior.

It doesn't intimidate Prussia. It will never intimidate Prussia and that rankles him more than he cares to admit.

The drinks flow freely, Prussia paying for them with crisp bills and unnecessary generosity, earning a kiss from the serving girl who giggles and slides against his body, a teasing promise. Germany, ah, Germany cannot tear his gaze away, cheeks alcohol flushed, tongue swiping out to lick the sweat away from his top lip.

“Like what you see?” Prussia says, all wicked humour and white teeth as he tugs the girl closer.

Germany snorts and averts his eyes, but from the corner of his eye, he can see Prussia's fingers sneak beneath the hem of her skirt, plucking at the lace of a garter belt and it's obscene and his heart beats faster at the sight. “I see debauchery,” he says and it makes his brother howl all the louder, nudging the girl away to fetch them another drink.

“Doesn't answer my question,” Prussia replies, and Germany feels a hand against his leg, trailing upwards lightly. He shivers, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end.

“You're depraved.”

“You're here with me,” Prussia counters and his lopsided smile is infuriating.

“Only because you asked,” Germany replies.

“Oh?” Prussia says wonderingly. “I'm glad to know that I still hold so much influence over you, my brother. Should I be worried that you're willing to admit it?”

“You would let the whole country fall to ruin,” Germany replies sourly, and the sourness comes from truth, bitter as gun smoke. He has never been Germany alone. Another drink is set in front of them, the pretty young girl drifting her fingers against Prussia's cheek as she passes.“All of this...”

Prussia's smile twists and warps into something that is more a sneer, a haughty expression more befitting an Empire. It infuriates Germany for reasons that he does not want to name. “You _let_ the whole country fall to ruin,” Prussia says poisonously, that broken glass smile never faltering, refracting Germany's faults back at him.

A roll of music flows through him, a man with a painted face and ruby lips taking his place on the stage. Prussia's scorched eyes bore into his before he turns away, cheering at the man as though that look had never been. The line of his body is clear and strong beneath his clothing, white hair sticking to the back of his neck, slick with sweat. Germany stares, stares until another drink is brought, stronger than beer, harsh tasting chemical warmth down his gullet until he finds himself cheering along with his brother.

He wakes up in a foreign bed, tangled between Prussia and the waitress and a young soldier with curling golden hair and an innocent face

\----------

There are more men than girls in the magazines that he keeps in the back of his wardrobe, behind the starched shirts and neatly pressed trousers. Large men, muscled and very German, spread out, oiled and muscled across the glossy pages, the centrefold crease smoothed as flat as he can manage.

They're the only books in the house which are dog-eared, the pages turned down at the corners, print faded, long since rubbed away by eager fingers. He buys them from a shop down near Spittelmarkt, at first wrapped in brown paper like the most illicit candy, then with barely a cover and then, why bother with covers at all? You can find them in the gutters for any child to see, water stained and ruined, the ink leaking across the pages in obscene rivulets.

Why bother to hide it when everyone will see them, when Berlin is the centre of the world?

The shop that he buys them from grows large, expands, countless shelves of the magazines and photographs; men with women and men with men, brothers and sisters lying together as with strangers.

And then he arrives that one day in spring to find the windows smashed and boarded up, the door locked tight, and words painted across the walls in daubs of damning white paint.

He lowers his gaze and hurries past as though he had never known it was there.

\---------

"Degenerates! Deviants!"

"Get out of here. Stupid child."

There is a crowd gathered outside the doors of Zauberflöte, Prussia's newest favourite club (he goes through four or five a month at least, and drags Germany to each one, as though seeking his approval). Clean shaven youths with neatly pressed shirts stand off against the patrons of the club; large men dressed in leather, dressed in silk, dressed in almost nothing that Germany can see.

He can barely hear the words when they are shouted like that and he pushes through the crowd to reach the doors.

"Hey, you!" someone calls, and Germany half-turns to see one youth, blond and blue eyed, like that boy he had taken to his bed (like himself, he thinks in one of those dark corners of his mind) approaching him, pointing accusingly. "Aren't you ashamed to be seen in one of these places? You one of these degenerates too?"

Germany would just turn away, but a strong arm is slung around his shoulder, dragging him close. "Yeah, he's one of those, aren't you brother?"

"Brother!" he says, glaring at mad red eyes and for the first time he finds himself ashamed of Prussia, of his cavalier attitude and liberal ways, when he presses his lips against Germany's as though they are lovers and not brothers, not Nations with grand histories and pride in their achievements.

When was the last time he felt pride?

"Freaks," the boy mutters before he's dragged away roughly by one of the club's men, thrown unceremoniously away from the door and into the dark street where a ragged prostitute spits at him.

Prussia laughs raucously into the night and his grip tightens around Germany's neck, guiding him into the dimly lit club.

Bright music filters through forbidden doors that only women may enter, and they climb the stairs, up and up to a room of stifling heat, the hot press of flesh against flesh and the scent of skin and sweat and men.

"What were they doing?" Germany asks, glancing down towards the door as though he will see them still, standing out there in their angry vigil.

Prussia shrugs and slides off Germany's jacket, throwing it carefully across a couch and throwing himself down next to it. "They've been coming around recently. Take objection to things."

"Maybe they have a point," Germany says hesitantly, as he only ever is with his brother.

Prussia snorts. "This is Berlin."

"You always say that," Germany replied harshly, forced to lean close to hear over the sound of bass and brass throbbing deep in his chest. "As though it explains everything. This is Berlin and it was not always like this!"

Prussia regards him for a moment, his smile lazy and faded like a photograph. "Berlin has always been like this. Half and half. It always will be, I wager."

Germany makes a noise of disgust and pulls away, grabbing for his jacket. Prussia catches his wrist, peers up at him. "It is only what we make of it," he says, lips drawn into a tight frown, his eyes shadowed. "Is this what we have made? It should be a city to be remembered!"

"Oh, it will never be forgotten," Prussia says, all rakish grin and dark promise that crawls up Germany's spine like some horrible black spider. "Who could forget such a place?"

"All people will remember is this," Germany replies, gesturing widely to encompass the room, the club, the whole of mighty Berlin in one. "This debauchery and depravity." Not their achievments, not all of the blood shed to forge such a place, such a country.

"The best a Nation can hope for is to be remembered," Prussia says, "and everyone remembers Babylon."

Germany stares at him, not recognising him for a moment. Is this is brother? His proud and mighty brother who had walked into Paris and raised the standard of the Black Eagle across Europe? He frowns, disgusted and turns away. "What happened to Prussia?" he asks viciously. "What happened to Prussian discipline and the Nation of Freidrich der Grosse?"

It is a low blow. He hears Prussia hiss as though burned and he does not turn back as he walks away.

The boy is bleeding when Germany finds him, a black eye and split lip, but his eyes are still bright and hungry and his devotion fills something in Germany which he had not realised was empty until now. He offers the boy his handkerchief, and in return, the boy gives him pamphlets marked with a crooked cross.

\----------

He sees them more and more as the days pass. They are impossible to miss in the midst of silk and suede Berlin nights, wearing sober brown and black which stand out more than the most outlandish and risqué of costumes in the most outrageous of clubs. They remind him of an army and it makes his heart sing with pride to remember the organised regiments, perfect uniforms and polished weapons, when they had struck fear into Europe. When they had had a purpose.

The singing grows louder, soft in his skull like a prayer, a hymn for the Germany that could be, everything that _he_ could be.

They find scattered glass outside the doors of Zauberflöte, window smashed and the girls and men who work there harassed, insulted. Prussia snarls at first, bright indignant at his favourite haunt being invaded in such a manner, even though his favourite is visited less and less.

"You aren't going to the club tonight, brother?" Germany asks as darkness draws in and Prussia is still coiled on the sofa, humming along to something on the radio, an old book open in his hand.

"No fun any more," Prussia says flatly, shooting Germany a look that could be accusation and could be curiosity.

"Oh?" Germany asks, blinking at him.

"The don't get the crowds they used to," he replies with a bitter twist of his lips. "You know they closed down the cabaret next door to it?"

Germany shakes his head.

"Windows smashed and the singer with his head beaten in," Prussia continues without waiting for the question, lips curved in a morbid expression which belies the bitterness in his eyes. "Found his body bloody and broken in the street and not a thing to be done about it, the police say."

"They cannot find anyone?" Germany asks, his brows drawing together in concern. Crime is a crime, no matter how difficult he finds it to feel sympathy.

"It isn't so much that they can't," Prussia says as if it is some particularly delectable joke, "so much as they won't."

“Ah,” he says, is all he can say, when the larger part of him sings to this newer beat. “This is Berlin, after all.”

\---------

Prussia stands atop Brandenburg gate, arms outstretched as though he thinks that he can touch the ends of the earth if he only stretches wide enough. His face is ashen pale, hair tousled with wind. He's wearing a suit as though it is a uniform, belt buckled tight around his waist.

"I found your things in the rubbish," Germany says coolly. The makeup and photographs, books that he had collected from a thousand little shops across the city, all twisted amongst the vegetable peelings and eggshells and broken crockery.

Prussia glances over his shoulder, smiles like a broken thing. "I put them there. Aren't you glad?"

Germany swallows, thick-guilt on his tongue and he can't meet his shattered eyes. "It is for the best," he says. "Berlin will be great again. I will swear to it."

"Berlin is always great," Prussia says, reaching up to fiddle with something at his throat. "The greatest of cities."

"It will be greater! No fallen Babylon, but the next Rome, the grandest of Empires, the purest of peoples." Rome had climbed so high and who would not want to emulate that? He has seen his people through the best of times and the worst of times and he will see them risen to where they should be. They have stood with him, and how can he do anything less for them?

Prussia lowers his head, and he looks so weary that Germany feels, for one flashfire moment, so very very young.

"Rome didn't last forever, little brother," Prussia says, his toes curling against the edge of the Gate, the shadow of the statue falling across him, distorting his silhouette. “Neither of them did.”

Germany barely heeds the flicker, the pause that lasts just a fleeting second upon hearing his brother's words, before he forces on, through mud and blood and stubborn pride. "Rome lasted forever in our memories. It touches the history of all of us. Who could ever forget it? I will build such a legacy for us. _We_ will build such a legacy for our people. To be remembered forever. That's what you wanted!" His words sound earnest and childish in his mind, but he has steel conviction in his voice that makes Prussia take notice, spine straightening like the soldier that he had been.

Prussia wears the iron cross around his neck, nestled close to his throat as Germany has not seen it since that last brutal war. "Yes, brother," he says beatifically, "we will be remembered."

\----------

His magazines burn brightly as he tosses them onto the bonfire along with the others. He watches as the pages twist and warp, turn black at the edges and wrinkle. From the way that the people cheer, he half expects to see a sickening black cloud seep from their pages, their filth and corruption burned like ancient martyrs, cleansed with fire.

They fall to ash on the ground, and he sees no difference to any other book.


End file.
